Jun 20, 2006 02:14 PM
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The Broker is the first novel of John Grisham that I read. Unfortunately, the book and the author failed to make any impression on me.
The Plot
The Broker is about a lawyer / lobbyist who tumbled upon intelligence secrets so dangerous that he is in risk of being killed. He gives up to the court and is sentenced to serve 14 years of prison. However due to change of events he is given a pardon and sent out of the country. The enemies are still after him and here lies the basic plot of the book. It’s about how the lawyer saves himself from his enemies and how the enemies keep stalking him.
Review
The author has done some good research in the Italian culture and language and seems to be at ease while describing the scenic beauty of Italy. But its here that everything positive about the book ends.
The story is slow paced and nothing noteworthy happens in most of the pages. The author created a good base in initial stages but failed to keep up to the expectations generated in first few chapters. The author names almost all the powerful secret agencies of the world as the enemy of the hero of the book and the hero survives all of them (the hero is neither superman nor Bollywood hero).The story is setup in Italy (the hero is to show himself as an Italian) so a good portion of the book is dedicated to the sentences, words and vocabulary of the Italian language. I am sure this will be well taken by students of the language. The author also makes a mockery of the emigration officers of various countries by making the hero to move from Italy to Switzerland to US on a forged passport.
Final comments
All in all a very loose story with wide gaps. I personally didn’t enjoyed reading the book. Read it only if you have nothing better to read or are interested in knowing more about Italian language and culture
